Suspect in '74 slaying delivered furniture to victim's house

Friday

Feb 7, 2014 at 6:00 AMFeb 7, 2014 at 8:57 AM

By Gary V. Murray TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

WORCESTER — A combination of state-of-the-art forensic technology and good old-fashioned police work led to Tuesday's arrest of a 69-year-old Georgia man in the 1974 stabbing death of Eileen Ferro in Shrewsbury, District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. said today.

Lonzo Guthrie of Austell, Ga., a former Worcester resident who used to work delivering furniture, was arrested on a warrant Tuesday in the Feb. 22, 1974, slaying of the 21-year-old Mrs. Ferro, whose body was discovered in a spare bedroom in her home at 30 Ladyslipper Drive in Shrewsbury. The body of Mrs. Ferro, a dental hygienist, was discovered by her husband, Anthony T. Ferro Jr., when he returned home from work, according to authorities.

She had been stabbed several times.

Mr. Early said at a press conference today that Mr. Guthrie, a registered sex offender with a rape conviction in California, had delivered furniture to the Ferro home the day before the killing.

Mr. Guthrie, who was living in Worcester at the time, was questioned by police during the initial investigation, but there was no evidence linking him to the crime, according to the district attorney.

A CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) database "hit" last summer led to Tuesday's arrest of Mr. Guthrie on a warrant issued out of Westboro District Court charging him with murder, Mr. Early said. Mr. Guthrie, taken into custody in Georgia as a fugitive from justice, is fighting his return to Massachusetts, according to the district attorney.

Mr. Early said state police detectives assigned to his Unresolved Case Unit submitted evidence recovered from the Shrewsbury crime scene to the crime lab last year for DNA testing. A DNA profile was derived from the evidence, which included blood, and a match to Mr. Guthrie's DNA profile was discovered last summer on the database, according to Mr. Early.

While modern forensic technology produced the DNA match, it was "dogged police work" that made the testing possible, the district attorney told reporters.

"They kept pushing and pushing and pushing — not letting it go," he said of his unresolved case investigators.

Mr. Early said Mr. Guthrie's DNA was included in the national database after he was convicted of rape and sentenced in Los Angeles, completed his sentence of 3 to 30 years and returned to Georgia and was rearrested there on a charge of driving without a license. The Georgia arrest triggered a violation of his probation in California, and it was then that Mr. Guthrie was required to submit a DNA sample, according to the district attorney.

State police investigators from Mr. Early's office went to Georgia to speak to Mr. Guthrie about the Shrewsbury slaying and arrested him with the assistance of Georgia authorities.

Mrs. Ferro's sister, Nancy M. Donnelly of North Brookfield, said Wednesday that the family was elated over the news of Mr. Guthrie's arrest.

"This news was the best news," Mrs. Donnelly said.

"You can't imagine living with this for 40 years. I thought I was going to my grave not knowing. Both my parents did. I'm sure they are looking down smiling," said the 72-year-old Mrs. Donnelly.

"We wanted justice for Eileen Ferro and, after all these years, closure for her family," Mr. Early said.

The district attorney praised the detectives assigned to his office, Shrewsbury police, the Douglas County Sheriff's Office in Georgia and the office of Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey for their respective roles in the investigation leading to Mr. Guthrie's arrest.

Mr. Early said he hoped Mr. Guthrie, who remains in custody in Georgia, would be returned to Massachusetts in about two weeks.